Global Musical Instruments Ships Around the Globe!

We are pleased to be able to serve the global community of musicians by offering you two ways to order our products.
The first method is through our International shipping partner Bongo International. We have partnered with Bongo International Parcel and Mail Forwarding to service our international customers, and you can conveniently complete the process in one step directly on our website.
Bongo International provides it's customers with their very own US address (not a P.O. Box). Once you have a US address, you will be able to make purchases with us as well as other US based online retailers. Bongo receives your purchases and logs them into their online system where you can consolidate them with other orders.
This process saves international customers who consolidate their shipment, up to 82% off typical international shipping rates.
They offer a step by step ordering guide, which makes the process faster. After registering with their service you will be returned to our website to complete your order. Bongo International is available in several foreign languages, making the ordering process even easier for those whose English skills are not as good.
Learn more about this convenient shipping consolidation service on our website homepage, click on the link above.
Bongo utilizes FedEx, which will cost about twice as much as the first method (contacting us for a quote/Paypal Invoice), but will shorten the shipping time by at least a week, depending on how you use the service.
Non US orders can also be arranged by us separately from the website. Just email us at EthnicSound@gmail.com with the list of items that you would like to order, as well as your country of destination then we will prepare a shipping quote for your review. Upon approval, we will then prepare a business Paypal invoice that will be emailed directly to you to complete payment. Postage using this first method is via United States Parcel Service’s Priority International and Express International services. This method is the most economical, but you can expect a total shipping time of 2-3 weeks depending on your destination and whether your choose Priority or International.

New Remo Mondo™ Cajon

~ Manufactured in Spain by the leading craftsmen in the industry

Global Musical Instruments is proud and excited to be offering the brand new Mondo™ Cajon from Remo. This well made cajon is of the quality you would expect from Remo.

What sets this cajon apart from the herd starts with the addition of Remo’s new Patented TEXTURE TARGET™’s which provide an authentic brush like sound. These targets are playable with one's hands or brushes to create a myriad of textural sounds.

Another great feature are the rich sounding and controllable snare effects. You will achieve powerful bass and slap tones with the reinforced 18.75” structure certified, (FSC, CARB), birch plywood that this superior cajon is constructed of.

I got to try out this solid cajon at the NAMM Show a few months ago where Remo debuted it, and was impressed with it's response, solid bass, and adjustable snare. The TEXTURE TARGET™ provides an unique flare. I had fun adding brush sounds with my fingers across the surface of the targets.

The Remo Mondo™ Cajon is sure to satisfy the most demanding musicians around the world.

Get yours today at Global Musical Instruments

Remo Crystal Doumbek, 8", Internal Tuning, Amethyst Citrine

I have been hesitant to delve into the realm of the solo sized doumbek drum. Still being of the beginning-intermediate skill level, the size of the head seemed too small to me, and I don't even have large hands. But I recently tested out the Remo Crystal Doumbek, the 8" internal tuning model. This smaller doumbek drum really surprised me, not only with its bold and responsive sound, but just how darn easy and comfortable it is to actually play. Pops and slaps come easy on the 8" Skyndeep head of this great little doumbek. The teks and kas are not metallic and ringy like most aluminum doumbeks, but rather have a bright yet warm tone, reminiscent of a small clay darbuka. You will hear just a small amount of slightly ringy overtones. It actually did take a little extra coaxing for the more powerful teks, but as you become acustomed to the feel of the drum, the teks and kas start to come easier, resulting in a nice woody/ ceramic sound. I am just learning some Turkish split finger technique, and was able to get good results on this Remo Crystal 8". Click on the following link to see me demonstrating on this Remo doumbek.

The Crystal series of doumbeks by Remo are slightly lighter in weight than the Soloist series, but don't be under the impression that these are light and flimsy drums. This is the smallest and lightest of the Crystal Internal Tuning models, and it still weighs in at just over 7lb/ 3.18kg. It feels secure on my lap, yet it is light enough to be playable by smaller adults and older children. The Remo Skyndeep head is a revolutionary synthetic drum head created by the pioneer of synthetic head technology. Doumbek players around the world rave about the sound and response of these unique drum heads. They were designed to look, feel and sound much like an actual fish skin head, with a very slight texture, and amazing response to the touch. And being a synthetic head, they are not prone to changes in humidity levels and weather, and maintain their pitch in all situations. This makes the Remo doumbek very convenient for travel, camping, beach outings, or the back yard!

The "Designer's Touch fabric finishes" on the Crystal doumbeks are… colorful. Festive and wild are two more descriptions that come to mind. At first I was actually a bit put off by the bright colors, not necessarily the design. The designs are actually pretty creative and pleasing. The patterns on this drum look somewhat like snake scales, with darker areas of purples and blues balanced with lighter areas of orange and yellow. There is also a subltle amount of glitter adorning the outside and continuing into the dark purple colored interior. It is definitely an attention grabbing drum, not only visually, but more importantly for how good it sounds. The smooth rounded bearing edge and recessed bolts allow for extended sessions of comfortable playing. In a word, it plays "buttery".

So if you are looking for a versatile and durable drum that travels well, is easy to play, is light on the wallet and sounds great, look no further than the 8" Internal Tuning Remo Crystal Doumbek. Quality constructed in the USA, the Remo line of percussion instruments continue to deliver the consistent affordable quality you have come to expect from them. This great doumbek is no exception to that.

Cairo Caravan 2011

I recently experienced Cairo Caravan aboard the famous Queen Mary ship, anchored in Long Beach Harbor, California. This 3 day event is organized and hosted every year by MECDA, the Middle Eastern Culture and Dance Association. The primary focus of the event is belly dancing, and there are 3 stages located on the 3 levels that are used, where throughout the day there are amazing performances. In addition, they have workshops and seminars by professional dancers from around the country and world.

The other smaller related focus of Cairo Caravan is on Middle Eastern drumming and percussion, and this is what sparked my interest in the first place. The stars of the weekend for me were Raquy Danziger and Liron Peled, otherwise known as Raquy and the Cavemen. They are professional drummers that have performed and taught workshops around world. Raquy hails from Brooklyn, NY and Liron is from Israel originally. They gave several outstanding performances and workshops throughout the weekend. Raquy plays the doumbek drum and the Kemenche style spike fiddle. She has studied and performed in Egypt with the likes of Said El Artist. Raquy lives part time in Turkey, where she performs as well as studies with master darbuka player Bunjamin Olgucan. Liron has played with Omar Faruk, among many others. His mastery of the "Boom-bek" (large brass doumbek) and many other percussion instruments is impressive. They both also "throat sing", which really blew me away. I had the great pleasure to meet them early in the weekend, as I was involved as an instrument vendor and also stayed aboard the ship for the entire weekend. We hit it off right away, and I had many great times with these super kind and fun people. Raquy is a special person, in touch with her "true self". She practices meditation and yoga regularly, and this reflects in her caring, kind nature, as well as her amazing musical ability. Her energy is completely contagious, and she has many affectionate students that attend her workshops regularly and also perform with her.

There was also a stage located just outside the ship, where there were drumming and belly dancing performances all day. I performed there with Cairo Beats, a collection of doumbek drumming students from my home San Diego that study under Frank Lazzaro. Frank has been on the drumming scene in SD for years, and has performed with some of the greats, including oud master John Bilezikjian. He plays doumbek and percussion with the Middle Earth Ensemble, as well as a full blown kit with the legendary Travel Agents. His drumming abilities span the globe, in that he is a master of many disciplines, including African, Middle Eastern and Latin percussion. He has also been a friend of mine for at least the last ten years.

I had a vendor's table at this great event, representing my online music store Global Musical Instruments. I offered many types of instruments there, with the emphasis being on Middle Eastern percussion. Lots of frame drums, tambourines, riqs, doumbeks, and even a sensemia!

I will definitely be back to Cairo Caravan again next year. The staff that puts it on are so great, and I made many fond connections with so many great people such as organizers Julie, Amy and Blume. Look for the Global Musical Instruments booth, where we will again be selling instruments and sharing great times with the friendly folks there.

The Native American Flute Soothes the Senses

I love it when I can pick up a completely unfamiliar instrument and easily achieve a nice tone. Some musical instruments just naturally allow one to do this with very little effort or skill necessary. A good example of this would be a keyboard type instrument. You simply press the keys and the machine does the rest. Other instruments are by their design not quite so simple. Flutes are generally in this later category. The most difficult thing to do usually is to control the breath into the flute to achieve a good sound. This is especially true of those types of flutes that require one to blow across the hole, either from the side or across the end, holding the flute at an angle. Both these types of flutes require a certain amount of skill to master, and often cause the novice to give up.
So when I picked up a most attractive cedar flute at the NAMM show this year at my supplier's booth, I assumed that I would not be able to get a decent tone out of it. Flutes are for flute players. I'm a bassist and percussionist. Ed, the technical guru and woodworker at Mid-East Mfg. noticed that I was simply examining the flute and suggested I give it a try. I stammered something about being a bass player, but he insisted. The first thing I noticed about this stunning hand crafted flute is that the hole where you blow is just that, a hole.
"Just blow gently into the end", Ed instructed, "it's simple, no need to blow across the top". He showed me how to line up the flute in my hands, the first three fingers of each hand covering the six holes, right hand below the left. It is tuned to the A minor pentatonic scale, making the fingering easy to learn, creating the mellow sound unique to Native American Flutes. I could not believe how simple it was to get the convincing tone. Ed then showed me some simple tricks like using your tongue to get a quavering effect on the drawn out notes. In no time, I was feeling like a real pro. The pentatonic scale makes the flute intuitive to play. Any combination of notes works, allowing the player the freedom to create natural sounding melodies with ease.
This Native American style flute is a beautiful work of craftsmanship. It is fashioned from solid pieces of aromatic cedar. As you hold and warm it in your hands and play, the flute begins to emit wonderful cedar aromas. It is initialed and numbered by the artist, Native American flute maker Dana Ross, who has Chikasaw heritage. He creates a line of fine wooden flutes utilizing traditional Chikasaw building techniques.

This and other fine ethnic instruments can be found for purchase at GlobalMusicalInstruments.com

The Remo Bendir Brings the Sounds of North Africa to You

Hailing from North Africa, the bendir or bandir is a frame drum with an ancient history. It has been used by the Sufi in their ceremonies for over a thousand years. Their traditions make use of music, rhythm and dance to achieve higher states of consciousness. The bendir, with it's particular buzzing tone, is believed to accentuate these states. There is a snare stretched along the inside surface of the bendir frame drum head consisting traditionally of gut line. Contemporary bendirs often utilize synthetic material such as fishing line which serves the same purpose. As the player strikes the head on the outside, along with the beat of the drum comes a buzzing tone that has a remarkable drone like quality.

Remo has developed an excellent version that captures the original feel, sound and look of the traditional bendir, but with several advantages. The first is the use of their industry leading synthetic head technology. The Remo Bendir is equipped with a fixed Fiberskyn 3 head, which has been set to the optimum tension in relation to the dimensions of the frame of the drum, utilizing Remo's patented PTS (Pre Tuned System). And since the head is synthetic, it won't be affected by weather and humidity conditions, as is the case with natural hide heads. This is a major advantage to the working musician who counts on his or her instrument to be ready to play no matter where the road may lead them.

The next big difference in the Remo Bendir compared to traditional bendirs is the use of their exclusive Acousticon material. This is made of recycled hard wood fibers which they use to construct their sturdy drum frames. One advantage of this material is that it is not prone to warpage as can be the case with solid wood instruments, due to the grain structure and wood's natural tendency to move even after being dried. With Acousticon you get even tone distribution with none of the "dead spots" that can occasionally plague wood instruments. It is lightweight as well, a real advantage for frame drummers who hold the instrument upright for extended periods of time. The Remo version of this ancient traditional frame drum has an ingenious way of achieving the snare sound that creates the distinct bendir sound. They have a clear thin plastic line that runs double across the inside of the head as it loops back at one end and is tunable and/or removable with the hardware found on the other side attached to the outside of the frame drum shell. (see photo)

I find the Remo Bendir to be meditative and habit-forming, in a good way. The deep shell gives the drum excellent warm mid-bass punch with good sustain, and the edge tek tones have a nice solid ring. The Fiberskyn 3 head projects well, and it's warm sound eliminate potential harsh bright tones. Remo really did their homework to create a version of the bendir that is both completely authentic looking, sounding and playing. And as a real bonus, the synthetic head allows you to achieve consistent tone in just about any location and humidity.

To hear and see the Remo Bendir in action, just click on the Youtube video link below:

Remo Bendir Video

You can purchase your Remo Bendir by visiting http://www.GlobalMusicalInstruments.com

The Electric Frame Oud, a Practical Solution for the Working Musician.

The Oud is the essential stringed instrument of Middle Eastern and North African music. With it's large pear-shaped body and short fretless neck, topped with the distinct tilted back headstock, the oud stands out. Historically, the oud shares it's ancestry with the European Lute.

But this is not a history lesson about this instrument. It is instead, an examination of a remarkable modern version of this ancient instrument. Influenced no doubt by the electric guitar, the electric frame oud has emerged in recent years. These versatile versions of the oud use for a body a wood frame, with the familiar pear shape, but shallow. Similar then to an electric guitar, the body of the oud is a fairly narrow frame, often with empty space cut-outs between the outer edge of the body and the neck, which extend into the center section of wood that continues to the bridge and and back of the body. And like an electric guitar depends on the electronics and pick-ups to transmit the sound to an amplification system, like-wise the electric frame oud utilizes a pick-up, usually the Piezo type which picks up the sound in the bridge and transmits it to a built-in pre-amp system. Then the sound travels via a standard guitar cord to the sound system or guitar amplifier.

The model I recently tried out was hand crafted by Morad Turki in Egypt. This electric frame oud features a Soho Piezo ceramic pickup with a Soho CT-4 4-band equalizer with volume control and low battery indicator. This allows the player complete control of the volume and tone of the instrument. For live performance and recording situations this is advantageous. And for the traveling musician, the convenience of the slim profile of the instrument is a real blessing, not only for the space savings, but the sturdiness factor as well. Acoustic ouds have a large delicate wood body, requiring a large case, and are inherently much more fragile than a solid wood body electric oud.

This Turki oud has an attractive black metallic pearl finish, and a wonderful teak fingerboard, whose wood grain structure is very attractive and rich looking. The overall finish is good, with a good amount of attention to details. The headstock has the traditional tilted back shape, but is conveniently fitted with modern metal gear-type tuners. These make tuning much easier than the traditional wood peg type tuners found on traditional ouds. They will also hold their tuning very well, which is not always the case with the peg type.

Plugged in, the sound of the pick up is very responsive and also quiet, meaning there is very little to no background hiss noise noticable when not playing. The electronics, pickup and EQ section work flawlessly, providing a nice clean rich tone, that sounds convincingly like a traditional oud, just conveniently amplified. The tone and volume are completely controllable with the controls found just below the bridge on the body for easy access. The equalizer section is especially impressive, allowing the player to completely sculpt the tone of the oud. There are four separate EQ sections, arranged by frequency, namely bass, mid, high, and presence. These are presented as convenient sliders, that act as cut and boost. So the middle position on the slider is flat, and you boost that frequency one way, and cut it by going below the middle position. If it sounds complicated it really is not at all, it's easy to grasp the concept when you fiddle with the sliders a bit. You will also discover that they are very sensitive, and can alter the tone greatly.

The weight of the electric frame oud is fairly light, less than the average electric guitar, but more than an acoustic oud. The combination of cool looks, convenience, playability and sound make this a great oud for all players, especially those that perform, record, or travel. You will be impressed with the Morad Turki Electric Frame Oud, which is available by visiting http://www.GlobalMusicalInstruments.com
Watch my video review of the Morad Turki Electric Oud by clicking on the link below, or by clicking on the "YouTube Videos" tab located at the top of this page.
Electric Oud Video Review